COBRAcable Sees Construction Start of Dutch Convertor Station

TenneT and its Danish partner Energinet.dk drove the first pile into the ground for the construction of the Dutch convertor station of the COBRAcable, a subsea electricity connection that will link the Dutch and Danish grids.

Nienke Homan, a member of the Groningen Provincial Executive, Marijke van Beek, mayor of Eemsmond, and TenneT COO Ben Voorhorst together performed the opening ceremony by starting the first pile-driving procedure. The ceremony was also attended by representatives of Siemens, which is responsible for the project’s electrical installations.

“The COBRAcable will play a key role in realizing a truly sustainable international energy landscape,” says TenneT COO Ben Voorhorst. “Via this cable, the Netherlands and Denmark will be able to exchange electricity in a convenient, safe and environmentally friendly manner. For instance, the Netherlands will be able to important more renewable wind energy from Denmark. During periods of little wind, the cable will increase the security of electricity supplies in Denmark. The interconnector will also be designed in such a way as to enable the connection of an offshore wind farm at a later stage.”

The COBRAcable will have a capacity of 700 MW, will be approx. 325 kilometres long, and will run from Eemshaven (the Netherlands) to Endrup (Denmark) via the German sector of the North Sea. The connection will be constructed as a High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) cable. Two onshore converter stations – one in the Netherlands and one in Denmark – are needed to connect the cable to the existing grids.

These stations will convert the electricity from direct to alternating current or vice versa (depending on the transmission direction), and will feed it into the Dutch or Danish onshore transmission grid in order to supply electricity to homes and businesses.

In addition to the new COBRAcable, Scheduled to enter into service in 2019, TenneT is currently also working on the NordLink project, a 1,400 MW subsea cable link between Germany and Norway that is expected to be completed in 2020.